Let's Play Dark Sun: Shattered Lands - completed

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Thanks for the support! I guess I'll post sixth chapter after only two more messages.

How is that your party go away??

You lost 2 guys or is just temporal? they come back?

They didn't go away on their own - I told them to do this - they were useless anyway: a preserver without any spells or psi points left and a character with one hit point and without a good melee weapon (you can't harm slimes with bows). And if both characters still fighting turned unconscious while the other ones were far away from slimes, the combat would end with all my characters "magically teleported" to the place where conscious characters were. Probably. It might as well bring them back to a place the party was fighting Dagolar. I'm not sure how does it work. It is good I didn't have to check this or I'd have to reload once again (because I didn't win the battle at the first time).

With Dagolar dead, one of the 2 high level defilers who would like to rule Athas is DEAD.
Now what about the other one? He has demons and stuff...

I have some suspicions...

And your suspicions are?

 

[ecliptic]

Damn you. I want to play this again now.

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter VI: Come in, chosen one

We shall see what are the consequences of killing Dagolar.

No reaction. I guess I was expecting too much.

Never mind, there's no time for whining when we have a chance to get out of sewers and breath the fresh air again. The skull was suggesting using a secret exit to avoid the guards but why would I care about some guards?

There is (was, actually) a group in the sewers...

...and a second one outside.

But I have found only this small group:

I can't do anything with the obelisk for now but I'd be amazed if it wasn't an important object.

After meeting the first trader in a game I already have more than 30 000 coins. I couldn't find any more interesting stuff so I can head north, to the wastes.

A group of heroes chosen by fate? Who could that be? I should look for them to tell them people are counting on them.

This location is quite simple and there's not much interaction but I really like its graphic style.

The last pic shows a graphical glitch which occurs quite often in DS. There is only one man but the sprite stays in the place he was a while ago.

He clearly haven't played any computer game. Come on, how can one ignore a prophecy anticipating a group of chosen heroes will save the lands?

There's another character and after talking with him (her?) we'll go to a village not far north from here.

He can't go back to his tribe because a tunnel which led to his home collapsed and now he is trying to find a new tribe. I will give the details if it will be relevant to the future events.

If playing a tough guy doesn't work for him, I'll try another approach.

Yes, they must be important.

Quite a liberal place: some old fart is masturbating in public and nobody have anything against it!

Yes, I can see, keep working.

Lost update had some crazy men so this one can't be much worse.

Looks like my every day job.

I think I must have it written on my forehead.

There are whole villages of ex-gladiators? Running away from arena wasn't that easy!

Show some respect to the half-goblin!

And that's all for this update. Thank you for your attention.

 

[Pussycat669]

This LP really makes me regret that I never played past the arena.

 

[Elwro]

Explore the well.


Also, I played the game a few times and somehow it never occured to me you could go out of the fields to the north and almost straight to the village. I always took the eastern route... which is perhaps the only place in the game with some challenge (save for the final battle), since you (usually) still have low level chars there.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

30000 coins? So you sold the gloves? These gloves make for a good offhand-weapon.
Right-Hand Els Drinker, left-hand gloves that cause Blindness...

 

[Jim Cojones]

I still have the gloves but I sold an axe +1 (it was worth about 20000) and some gems.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

never sell the large gems (needed for the obilisks - teleporter device), be careful about selling enchanted weaponry - enchanted weapons are rare and you'll need them to hurt certain monsters (fiends/demons and elementals)

 

[Jim Cojones]

Chapter VII: Actually, it's mostly just desert

In this update I'll <s>be running through the desert and killing things</s> take the advantage from the fact that the world has become much more open: I'll explore the world and probably find a quest or two. And after the update I'll alow you to chose where to go next.

There is another person in the Teaquetzl I haven't already spoken to, the local priest.

I was asked to bring some important ingredient for a potion.

I've drawn a map for you so you'll be able to tell where am I and you'll admire my great skills. Unfortunately, I haven't considered the fact that I don't have such skills.

Some four-eyed dogs. They're rather weak but can paralyse.

This is the place village cleric ask me to go.

He can tell me about the history of magical weapons I'm wielding, like this background:

And also gave me a gem that I can use on obelisks but haven't realised what can I achieve by doing this.

And finally I meet cleric's friend.

Which means I have to do the extract. It doesn't matter because it is not a difficult work.

Terror bloom? Sounds like decline but he will pay. And "greed is good".

To Cerdite!

Another lizard-man.

Looks like losing a tribe is common in these regions.

When we arrive in Cerdite at last...

The last time I visited the village, it was so prosperous I considered retiring there.

Much has changed. The locals should tell us where is the source of attacks.

The loremaster is busy but we helped during the bandits raid so he finds some time to tell us how to get terror bloom, even though the only purpose one would have in obtaining a terror bloom is to make a deadly poison. I'm sure Notaku's client, uncle Todd, is a reliable person and our actions won't lead to anyone's harm.

Ravager's attacks are strong and destroy armor, he has many hp and can terrify enemies. After killing the beast we'll talk to the village leader.

Is this guy Krikor?

Nope.

So he must be the one I'm searching for.

We'll come back here later.

Decline points: +1.

You should remember where one of mastyrials is. I can buy it for salt.

We should look at the beautiful map again:

So where do we go next? My propositions are:
- explore the well in Teaquetzl,
- attack the bandits' castle,
- go to the Gedron (northwest from Teaquetzl) and deliver the extract,
- explore the eastern parts of the desert.

 

[abstract]

Have you searched the dragon's eye?

 

[crakkie]

I can't remember how far I got. I know I never finished it (I think I lost my saves and the thought of going through dagolar's lair again was too much). I'm pretty sure I found the terror bloom (remember fighting ravager in a painted desert), and I believe I stopped in the bandit's castle.

So go there.

 

[Azira]

Take on the bandits! That sounds like good clean fun.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I suggest you go east now. You might as well explore the well first.

You didn't give corn to the starving Celdrite people - although you could find a lot of these corn sacks in Dagolars lair. Then you've been impolite to Chaya and she did not give you her treasure chest. Choices and Consequences.

 

[Elwro]

Shh, he doesn't know anything about the dragon's eye yet.

I'd suggest checking out the well in Teaquetzl and then going to see what's going on in the south-eastern part of the desert. (East of the fields.)

(Although in my last playthrough I first finished the Gedron business and dealing with the Cedrilte bandits was one of the last things I did. It's nice the game permits doing stuff in various orders.)

@crakkie: Dagolar's lair is entirely optional.

 

[Waterd103]

Personal i found darksun shattered lands to be the best rpg.
I really wonder why more RPGS didn't use a lot of the darksun good points.
It has a lot of options to solve things, all fights are meaningfull (there is no grind or filler fights wtih rats and stuff). The dialogs are fun. The game has a lot of variety (you fill find that you will find new monsteres with new abilites all the time). The story, problems and solutions make sense.

The combat system is easy to use, there is a lot of freedom in the game. I think shattered lands is an example to follow in rts, but no one did, i wonder why.

Bad things? It was completly unbalanced, some spells are super imba, and other spells are useless, same with psionics. Also, there was little benefit on no multiclassing, finally how the stats worked was horrible. Charisma is practically useless, intelligence is pretty much useless and Strength scalates in the most stupid way possible.Shopping in general is badly done. Also the character creation made no sense.

I always wished someone modded the game to fix all the unbalanced stuff, sadly, it never happend.

 

[Elwro]

Well, I found charisma useful in at least two conversations, where it allowed me to skip two major fights. Intelligence is sometimes useful when deciphering old texts - the game makes a stat-check.

Also, if you're playing a druid or preserver you need the stats to have the 10% XP bonus.

As for not multiclassing: I chose not to multiclass my gladiator since that class gets nifty (not properly documented) combat bonuses at higher levels - more attacks, faster attacks etc. After the whole playthrough, I think it was worth it.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Blood Omen (if I find why the game freezes sometimes after cutscenes)

Had the same problem for a while, but all you need to do is alt-tab to make it defreeze.

Classic

 

[ghostdog]

Are you sure it was a good move to look for the Terror BLOOM ?

 

[Jim Cojones]

Blood Omen (if I find why the game freezes sometimes after cutscenes)

Had the same problem for a while, but all you need to do is alt-tab to make it defreeze.

It didn't work for me because I wasn't even able to use alt-tab. This problem has been solved with a fan made patch which I did use but it didn't work for some reason. Everything runs fine after reinstallation.

Classic

At least the game doesn't tell you to look for the specific paragraph in the manual to check the details of the story every five minutes.

Are you sure it was a good move to look for the Terror BLOOM ?

I'm sure Notaku's client, uncle Todd, is a reliable person and our actions won't lead to anyone's harm.

I have some free time today (and I will be rather busy during next days) so I will prepare an update. But it would be nice if there were a few votes more and I wouldn't have to decide from the tied options - you have an hour or two to before I start playing.

 

[xantrius]

Thanks for LP. Seems like quite a charming game, I'd ought to try it out at some point; now if only I could finish my studies of that time-stop spell and make it work in practice ...

 

[Jim Cojones]

Well, do ya, punk?

Chapter VIII: Well, do ya, punk?

Very short, not much comment from me but I guess it's better than nothing.

Wow, I was thirsty.

Not much to do here, in the picture you can see the only room I can access at the moment. I will be able to get to other parts of the level later.

On the other note, I managed to find out how does teleportation work in the game so the gem lying on the floor will be useful.

I was hoping for explaining how does such crystal look so I'd known when I found one.

Yes, you've said that just five seconds before.

Next time we'll be fighting NMA!

 

[Turok]

Fighting NMA?

Fightings No Mutants allowed?

 

[Andhaira]

Ah yes, this is the only pace in the game where turn undead is truly useful. I wuiped out the entire bunch of shades with only 1 turn undead. (basically, druids are superior to clerics in this game)

 

[Elwro]

Well, for a low level party Turn Undead is really useful in Dagolar's Lair, too.

Why are druids superior to clerics? Being able to cast Cure Serious Wounds is one thing, but what about other differences? Is their Turn Undead ability better or what?

 

[Brother None]

Jeesh, what a wordy ghost...

And the girl's name is Tristram? There's a twist on a classic tale, I guess.

Fight NMA? FOR THE GLORY OF THE CODEX!